A whippoorwill interrupted by a screech owl falls silent after three attempts to steal back the stage. When the owl falls silent, a peeper calls.
screech owl
8/23/2023
Cold at dawn, with the lightest of breezes bringing sounds from the east—mostly the limestone quarry’s dull roar. A screech owl trills. The clouds go pink.
8/20/2023
Another autumnal dawn. A screech owl trills from just inside the woods. Crows head past en route to an angry mob. The fluting of geese.
1/8/2023
Heavy gray sky. A screech owl’s descending quaver. And then it’s sunrise, according to my phone and the crows.
11/29/2022
Heavily overcast at sunrise; only the ground glows a faint pink, thick with rain-slick leaves. A screech owl trills.
2/15/2022
I love these frigid mornings with their gift of silence. The stream gurgling out from under my yard. Nuthatches. Wren. A distant screech owl.
10/14/2021
Just past sunrise. Ground fog in the meadow full of white-throated sparrows. A screech owl trills from the powerline.
9/19/2021
5:30. A pair of barred owls exchange queries as the sky begins to brighten. A screech owl’s quaver. Sudden loud wingbeats in the meadow.
8/22/2021
A few minutes after moonset, and the ground fog is still aglow. A screech owl’s monotone trill.
1/21/2018
Low, gray clouds, and the ground half-brown after a day and night of melting. Over the rumble of my furnace I hear a screech owl trilling.
11/11/2017
Bright sun, heavy frost. Down in the hollow, a screech owl calls as persistently as if it were midnight. I take deep breaths of the icy air.
10/23/2017
Brighter color between the trees: sunrise. Gray as their trunks: a doe and her grown fawns. From down hollow, a screech owl’s trill.
9/21/2014
Well after sunrise, a screech owl trilling like the god of tree crickets. I notice that the barberry above the creek is livid with fruit.
9/2/2014
Dawn is the original thief in the night. Sleepless from a fever, I stare disbelieving at the sky’s stain of light as a screech owl trills.